Tag: UN

Ebola is back

The number of new cases of Ebola rose in all three of West Africa’s worst-hit countries last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, ending several weeks of encouraging declines across the region.

Suspicion of aid workers, especially in Guinea, and unsafe local practices were continuing to hamper efforts to halt the deadly virus, the United Nations agency said.

The WHO said a week ago that there had been 99 confirmed cases in the week to Jan. 25, the lowest tally since June 2014, raising hopes that the tide might have turned.

But its new figures, for the week ending Feb. 1, showed the first recorded rise in new cases across all three countries this year.

Sierra Leone, the worst hotspot, accounted for 80 of the 124 new cases of the disease, Guinea recorded 39 while Liberia had just five, all near the capital Monrovia, the report said.

Nearly one third of Guinea’s 34 prefectures had reported at least one security incident or other form of refusal to cooperate with health workers in the previous week.

Villagers are often alarmed by the approach of aid workers wearing space-age protective equipment and have resisted efforts to find cases, isolate those infected and chlorinate homes.

Meetings were planned between authorities from Guinea, Mali and Senegal to strengthen disease surveillance, the WHO said. A rapid response team has deployed in the border area with Ivory Coast, it added.

In all, 8,981 people have died of Ebola out of 22,495 known cases in nine countries since the outbreak began in December 2013, according to the agency.

Source: Reuters

Global demands for justice reaching ‘critical mass’

A report from the United Nations accuses past and current US officials of withholding details regarding which specific individuals were responsible for the nation’s policy of enhanced interrogation, known throughout the rest of the world as torture. While the illegal acts were approved at the highest level of the US government, the UN insists those responsible still must be tried for war crimes, and if convicted, imprisoned.

In 2005, in response to global accusations of American war crimes, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed Resolution 2005/80. It created a special investigator for a period of three years and specifically empowered him to investigate the US-backed War on Terror. The first appointed UN investigator was Martin Scheinin of Finland. Currently, the UK’s Ben Emmerson is the lead investigator. And it’s Mr. Emmerson that has criticized both the Bush and Obama administrations for withholding evidence of war crimes.

The UN committee originally charged the special investigator with carrying out seven individual mandates. Six of the tasks revolve around developing a modern UN policy to work with US and NATO-backed forces to insure human rights are respected in the midst of their international war on terror. But one of the seven UN mandates, the one the US is accused of stymieing, reads (from the UN Human Rights Commission):

‘To gather, request, receive and exchange information and communications from and with all relevant sources, including Governments, the individuals concerned and their families, representatives and organizations, including through country visits, with the consent of the State concerned, on alleged violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.’

UN isn’t playing games with US and UK

After eight years of stonewalling and resistance by US and UK authorities, the UN special investigator addressed the world body’s Human Rights Commission publicly, demanding the two nations cooperate with the investigation.

Ben Emmerson, the lead special investigator, described to the gathered UN dignitaries a setting of self-approved legal immunity among US and UK national leaders. He called the two governments’ standing policy, “A policy of de facto immunity for public officials who engaged in acts of torture, rendition and secret detention, and their superiors and political masters who authorized these acts.”

In his speech before the UN commission, Emmerson described how African and Middle Eastern citizens and their governments are demanding the perpetrators be brought to justice. Many have watched their own national leaders arrested and charged with war crimes for virtually the same acts that US and UK officials are currently accused.

“Words are not enough,” UN investigator Emmerson remarked, speaking indirectly to Western leaders, “Platitudinous repetition of statements affirming opposition to torture ring hollow to many in those parts of the Middle East and North Africa that have undergone, or are undergoing, major upheaval, since they have first-hand experience of living under repressive regimes that used torture in private whilst making similar statements in public.”

Then, speaking specifically of those same Western regimes, Emmerson said, “The skepticism of these communities can only be reinforced if Western governments continue to demonstrate resolute indifference to the crimes committed by their predecessor administrations.”

Global demands for justice reaching “critical mass”

Marches and protests across the globe would seem to support Ben Emmerson and his team’s conclusions. However, Western officials have remained steadfast in their resistance to being held accountable. But the world may not wait much longer Emmerson suggests, “Calls for accountability are fast approaching a critical mass.” And moments prior to his condemning speech to the UN committee, the chief investigator is reported to have spoken candidly to the UK’s Guardian.

As quoted by ReaderSupportedNews.org, Ben Emmerson told the British news outlet, “In South America, it took up to thirty years before the officials responsible for crimes like these were held fully accountable. With the conspiracy organized by the Bush-ear CIA, it has taken a decade. But the campaign for securing the right to truth has now reached a critical point.”

In a separate report of the speech by RT News, the outlet quotes UN investigator Emmerson as explaining that one of the most glaring examples of CIA human rights violations are the agency’s secret ‘black sites’, “There is now credible evidence to show that CIA black sites were located on the territory of Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Thailand, and that the officials of at least 49 other states allowed their airspace or airports to be used for rendition flights.”

Emmerson went on to explain, “Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States.”

It’s apparent that the United Nations is serious about bringing US and UK public officials to trial for international war crimes related to torture and the West’s war on terror. But without the cooperation of the current governments of the two nations, UN human rights investigators will have a difficult time producing the evidence needed to do so.

Source: Whiteout Press

UN urges Israel to renounce nuclear arms, join NPT

The UN General Assembly has passed an Arab-introduced resolution calling on Israel not to develop, produce or possess nuclear arms and criticizing the country for not being part to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The resolution calls on Israel to “accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons,” and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, AP reports.

The UN would like to see the whole of the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone, according to the text of the document, which specifies Israel is the only country in the region which has not signed the non-proliferation treaty.

Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms but has never admitted to it, has long been under fire from Arab countries in the region for not putting its alleged stockpile under international supervision.

The resolution, initiated by Egypt, was approved by 161 nations with only five voting against it and 18 abstentions.

The United States and Canada were among the minority opposing the measure.

US representative Robert Wood, earlier condemned the resolution for failing “to meet the fundamental tests of fairness and balance.”

“It confines itself to expressions of concern about the activities of a single country,” he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted in September on a resolution, expressing concern over Israel’s assumed nuclear arsenal. That time the resolution was rejected by 58 votes to 45.

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding call on Tel Aviv to join the NPT “without further delay.”

Israel then rebuffed the call with the Foreign Ministry saying in a statement that the UN “lost all its credibility regarding Israel with these types of routine votes that are ensured passage by an automatic majority and which single out Israel.”

Israel has repeatedly called Iran as the real nuclear threat in the region.

Tehran, according to various US security reports, is not pursuing weapons but peaceful nuclear applications.

UN to investigate GCHQ, MI5 spying at climate talks

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced he will launch an inquiry into allegations that British secret service agents spied on foreign governments at two consecutive international climate summits in 2009 and 2010.

Speaking to Danish television, Ban Ki-moon said the allegations were a UN issue, because the climate summits are UN conferences.

“All diplomatic information is inviolable. If there has been any breach … they should be investigated. UN information should be protected in its entire confidentiality,” he said.

The presentation, disclosed by former NSA senior analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealed it became a “serious intelligence priority” for Britain’s clandestine intelligence services to spy on negotiations brokered an international UN summits from 2007.

The 23-page PowerPoint presentation was first published by Swedish site Dagbladet Information.

The file entitled, “Supporting HMG’s (Her Majesty’s Government) Climate Change Ambitions,” states a GCHQ secret service official frequented the high profile UN gatherings, also attended by an array of international leaders.

The document indicates the spy reported to Downing Street, the foreign secretary, diplomats, the Department for International Development (DfID), the business department, the Treasury and MI5.

According to the file, the GCHQ official was planted in the UK delegation because such a cover would facilitate direct access to other state’s delegates along with useful documentation they were in possession of.

The spy’s remit, as outlined in the document, was to discern states’ climate policy leanings, report on how far they were prepared to broker on issues, uncover if foreign delegates poised at the UN negotiation table were receiving orders from their respective governments, and relay this information back to British officials to bolster Britain’s leverage at the climate talks.

While the talks failed spectacularly in 2009, the UK secret service operation was reportedly a success. States were expected to wrap up years of tenuous negotiations with a landmark cross-border agreement to curb carbon emissions.

Such actions could amount to a violation of international law, because UN climate conferences are officially declared to be UN territory throughout the negotiations.

Snowden’s disclosure could cause embarrassment to current leftist Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, who held the position of energy and climate change secretary in 2009. Miliband also led the British delegation at the UN Climate Summit in 2009.

 

President Putin welcomes collective human rights

By Wayne Madsen

Russian President Vladimir Putin has redefined the cause of international human rights to include the concept of «collective human rights». Putin rightly argues that in addition to individual human rights, which are being used by various special interests to advance such «boutique causes» as rights got lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, pedophiles [as seen recently by the German Green Party’s defense of members of Green Party-run pedophile communes], groups of people have the right to protect their social, religious, linguistic, and cultural identities against forces that seek to undermine such distinctions.

In recent years, the interventionists of the U.S. State Department, backed by George Soros and his ilk, have sought to destroy the character of various aspirant nations and ethnically- and linguistically-based regions that have striven for cultural and social independence. Putin has recognized such besieged peoples and that him to recognize the independence of the Republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from the CIA- and Soros-infested Republic of Georgia; the autonomy of and referendum in Crimea that saw it reunite with Russia; and the right of Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, and Novorossiya to determine their own futures without oppression and violence directed from Azerbaijan, Moldova/Romania; and Ukraine, respectively.

Putin has international law on his side in his argument that collective human rights do, in fact, exist. Such rights were outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1989 Convention of the International Labor Organization, and the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In June of this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted in favor of a resolution that recognized group human rights. The global homosexual lobby, as represented by the U.S. State Department, Soros-funded NGOs, and such media outlets as The Daily Beast, cried foul. They claim there are no collective human rights, only individual human rights with an overarching focus on gay rights. The U.S. position that there are no «traditional values» associated with human rights was rejected in a council vote of 26 for, 14 against, with 6 abstentions.

Voting with Russia and against the United States was South Africa, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam, nations with religious majorities and minorities that are constitutionally protected from domestic or foreign dictates that they submit to the whims of the globalized special interests of Soros and his lackeys within the State Department. Other nations that voted with Russia included Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, China, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Namibia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, and Venezuela. The Soros NGOs and The Daily Beast cried foul and suggested that these nations did not reflect the will of the international community.

Russia stood accused by the Soros types and their State Department facilitators of opposing «diversity». Yet, Russia’s support for the rights of indigenous rights of groups to their own language, religion, and cultural and social values is at the very essence of recognizing diversity, whether it is in Abkhazia, Donetsk, the Serbian districts of the contrivance called the «Republic of Kosovo,» or the Alawite and Kurdish towns of Syria.

All the minions of Soros and the global gay lobby could do was condemn the 26 countries that voted for the collective human rights resolution as nations having «appalling» human rights records. The gay rights lobby would gloss over the dismal records of individual human rights witnessed in such «gay rights» havens as the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand with their panoptic electronic surveillance societies, general acceptance of police brutality, harsh suppression of racial minorities (an issue that is ignored by many gays so long as it is racist and not homophobic-related oppression), and curtailment of free speech.

The Russia-promoted UN human rights resolution also protects children and women from sex slave trafficking. It is no surprise that The Daily Beast would condemn a resolution targeting a revolting global sexual slave trade that is largely centered in Israel. After all, The Daily Beast appears to take all of its editorial directions from the power centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, along with their subservient political and financial cells in New York, London, Miami Beach, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

The gay lobby and its supporters are flat out wrong when they reject Putin’s doctrine of collective human rights. Enshrined in international human rights law is the «communal right of privacy,» in addition to general collective human rights, especially as they relate to the rights of indigenous people to be free of wanton exploitation and abuse by neo-colonial or economic interests. In many oppressed regions, dubiously-collected national census information has been used to forcibly assimilate and transfer indigenous populations from their historic lands.

Western corporations and interests, including those of Soros, have eagerly backed Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because they realize that with her in charge of Myanmar (Burma), western exploiters will be free to displace the ethnic Shan, Kachin, Karen, and other peoples from their resource-rich lands in northern and eastern Myanmar. The Democratic Republic of Congo serves as a case in point where Western corporations have disregarded collective human rights in order to pillage native lands of their precious natural resources. The rise of the «blood diamond» industry in central and western Africa is directly linked to the blatant disregard by the West for «collective» or «group» human rights.

In the early 1990s, before the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), an alternative «United Nations» for indigenous peoples lacking representation at the UN, was taken over by Soros-controlled NGO bureaucrats and «Eurocrats,» the organization based in The Hague conducted a survey of 32 of its then-47 members. The survey discovered that many of the UNPO peoples sat atop highly-coveted natural resources. After UNPO organization was subsumed by the global network of Soros NGOs, which saw to it that Karl von Habsburg of the Austro-Hungarian royal pretenders was appointed UNPO’s director-general, the organization no longer points out the dangers posed to indigenous peoples by unscrupulous corporations and hedge funds like those controlled by Mr. Soros and his Rothschild and Rockefeller colleagues. It was also no coincidence that Von Habsburg served in a senior executive position for the NGO World Vision, an organization with historical ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Hapsburg family are influential promoters of a federalized Europe that stands opposed to the concept of collective human rights as most recently seen in the European Union’s sharp opposition to Scottish and Catalonian independence. The cause of collective human rights received a sharp body blow by the takeover of UNPO by the Soros and Habsburg interests and the collapse of the Scottish and Catalonian independence movements.

The very same promoters of individual human rights, which is nothing more than State Department and Soros code for «gay rights,» would deny collective rights to Kurds, native Americans, and Asian tribal peoples because their cultures and creeds may oppose the promotion of homosexual life styles. Therefore, in the eyes of the gay movement, it is better for such groups to remain suppressed if they refuse to accept the «foreign» life styles imposed from abroad. Putin, by advancing the concept of collective human rights, has seen through the Soros and gay liberation smoke screen as he has called out their main promoters for their abject hypocrisy.

International investigation called after mass graves found in Ukraine

The Russian Foreign Ministry, legislators and members of non-governmental and human rights organizations have demanded an international investigation into mass graves in Ukraine.

Russia’s Public Chamber has adopted a statement with a call to the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to investigate mass graves in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region.

The graves were found on Ukrainian National Guard positions in eastern Ukraine. Forensic experts examined one of them to arrive at the conclusion that the victims had been shot in the head at a point-blank range. Four bodies have been examined so far.

“The discovered graves are evidence of outrageous war crimes and require investigation under international control,” runs the statement read out by the Civic Chamber’s deputy secretary Sergey Ordzhonikidze.

“The Public Chamber is asking the United Nations, the OSCE and other agencies to create an independent panel of inquiry to investigate the affair,” Ordzhonikidze said, adding that “a military tribunal for war crimes in Ukraine must be the end goal.”

On September 23 there were reports local militias discovered several mass graves near the Kommunar coalmine near Donetsk. Earlier the territory was under the control of the Ukrainian army and the National Guard’s battalion Aidar.

The whole territory will be combed. Militias have already found several other graves, which are kept intact for the time being.

Too many omissions in Dutch report on MH17

No real international investigation of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine has been conducted, Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said, adding that there are too many blank spots in the newly released Dutch report on the tragedy.

The document, released by the Dutch Safety Board’s Tjibbe Joustra (DSB) on Tuesday, said that the Malaysian Boeing-777 crash was the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck it from the outside.

“It is very hard to call this investigation a truly international one. Many questions have been left unanswered. There are too many omissions,” Churkin said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 channel.

The Dutch report “did little to advance our understanding of what happened,” only confirming what was already known before, he stressed.

It says that the Malaysian plane “didn’t fall by itself, but was shot down. However no further thoughts in this regard are being presented,” the envoy said.

According to Churkin, Dutch investigators have also completely ignored the issue of at least one Ukrainian warplane that reportedly was in midair near the Malaysian plane when the disaster occurred on July 17.

“The report says another three commercial airliners were cruising in the vicinity at the moment of tragedy, but it does not say anything if Ukrainian warplanes were there, too. Our Defense Ministry said at least one military jet might have been there and eyewitnesses also say they saw one or two jets in the sky,” Churkin stressed.

“For some reason however the problem is bypassed,” he added.

It also looks “very strange” that the text of the DSB report doesn’t say a word about the UN Security Council’s resolution on MH17, the envoy said.

The Russian envoy also wanted to know the reasons for the 40-day delay in delivering the recordings of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the jet from the Ukrainian side to the investigators.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, repeated the call for more transparency in the MH17 crash investigation as he met with Malaysian defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, in Moscow on Tuesday.

During the meeting, it was “noted that the [Dutch] probe was incomplete,” the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement.

Moscow believes that “very important expert examinations have actually not been conducted on the crash site. Without them, valid conclusions on the reasons of what happened are impossible.”

The ministry pointed out that some expert examinations are already impossible to carry out now due to protraction of investigation.

“Russia insists on maximally transparent work of the international commission, fulfilling all norms of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and is ready to participate in it on a team basis,” the statement said.

All 298 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines jet died as it crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on July 17. The majority of those on the plane – which was allegedly shot down – were citizens of the Netherlands.

The disaster has prompted NATO to become more deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict, blaming Russia despite a glaring lack of evidence.

It was initially alleged that the plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. However, claims were also made that the flight was shot down by a Ukrainian military jet which was in the area at the same time.

Ebola czar has disastrous biosecurity record

Newly appointed UN Ebola Czar, David Nabarro, has warned of an explosion of Ebola cases.

Nabarro, a UKIP politician, was the senior UN system Co-ordinator for Avian and Human Influenza when WHO supplied the bird flu virus which contaminated 72 kilos of seasonal flu in Baxter’s biosecurity 3 facilities in Austria in 2009.

Biologist Richard Ebright recommended civil and criminal proceedings be instituted over another comparatively tiny breach with thebird flu virus when he testified before Congress last month on CDC lapses, Reuters reports.

A U.S. government scientist working with bird flu rushed through lab procedures in order to get to a staff meeting, setting off what could have been a fatal mishap, health officials said.

They said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab worker, who was not identified, allotted only about half the time necessary to carry out the procedures safely, and as a result samples of mild avian flu were tainted with a highly deadly strain and sent from CDC to researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

CDC released the report of its investigation of the avian flu incident and said disciplinary action is under consideration. The agency is under congressional scrutiny over repeated safety lapses, including the potential exposure of scores of its workers to live anthrax bacteria in June.

As serious as the sample mix-up, which occurred in January, was the failure to report it as required by federal law when the contamination became clear in May, according to biosafety experts. CDC did not report the incident until July.

“The matter needs to be referred for civil and/or criminal investigation,” said biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, an expert in biosafety who testified before Congress last month on the CDC lapses.

According to the report, CDC shipped the avian flu sample from its Atlanta campus to a USDA poultry lab in Athens, Georgia, in March, and scientists there began using it in research in May.

When the supposedly non-lethal viruses killed an entire flock of chickens, a USDA scientist sequenced the genome of the virus. That revealed it was not low-pathogenicity H9N2, as CDC said, but highly pathogenic H5N1, which has killed hundreds of people since 2013.

USDA scientists, out of an abundance of caution, handled the sample under stringent biosafety conditions, including with gloves, suits, and respirators, and no one was infected.

On May 23, USDA scientists told the CDC flu lab about the mix-up. CDC scientists did not report it to managers, or file a form required when dangerous pathogens are mishandled, until July 9, just as CDC officials were completing a report on the anthrax breach that occurred in June.

LACK OF JUDGMENT

Failure to report reflected “a lack of sound professional judgment by those aware of the contamination,” the CDC investigators wrote. Among those aware of the release were the head of the flu lab and the Virology Surveillance and Diagnostics Branch Chief, the report said.

The CDC investigators concluded that the failure to report the breach was not deliberate, which Rutgers’ Ebright said in an interview “strains credulity.”

How the original mix-up of flu strains occurred is unclear, the report said, because the CDC scientists said they could not recall everything they did and did not keep a lab notebook or other written documentation.

As best the investigators could tell, however, a flu lab scientist transferred H9N2 virus received from Hong Kong, and H5N1 from Vietnam, into cell cultures on the same morning.

Based on card-key readers that record entries and exits, the investigators concluded that the scientist rushed through a procedure that required 90 minutes to ensure safety – basically, putting enough time between working with H9N2 and then with H5N1 – in just 51 minutes in order to make a noon meeting. That included time to shower and change.

In addition, the report found, there was no approved procedure for what the scientist was doing, colleagues who might have noticed a breach were frantically rushing to finish experiments ahead of a February scientific meeting, and the lab director had a “heavy work load”.

The flu lab scientists told CDC investigators they did not realize they were required to file a ‘Form 3’ about the accidental release of a dangerous pathogen. A USDA spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether the poultry lab scientists were required to file the form.

CDC said it is reviewing existing laboratory protocols, taking steps to improve record-keeping and compliance, testing for cross-contamination before samples are transferred within or outside CDC, and “providing additional extensive training” of lab staff, including reporting requirements.

Russia to request UN report on MH17 air disaster

Russia is planning to request an official report on the progress of the investigation into the crash of a Malaysian passenger plane in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said Monday.

“We will ask for a briefing by the UN Secretariat on the progress of the implementation of Resolution 2166,” Churkin told reporters at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Churkin said it had been a month since the start of the probe and paragraph 13 of the resolution envisions periodical reports by the UN secretary general on the progress of the investigation.

On August 14, the Dutch Safety Board, which is in charge of victim identification and probing the cause of the disaster, said it had finished its work in Ukraine, and that an initial report on the flight MH17 crash will be released during the first week of September.

A total of 298 people, including 193 Dutch citizens and 27 Australians, died on July 17 as a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Donetsk Region of Ukraine.

The investigation into the circumstances of the crash is seriously obstructed by continuing clashes between independence supporters and Kiev forces in eastern regions of Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities claim the plane was shot down by independence supporters, whereas the latter say they do not have necessary equipment to hit a target flying this high.

Source: RIA Novosti

War in Eastern Ukraine catastrophic envoy warns

The situation in eastern Ukraine was described as a catastrophic, full-blown war by Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, during the latest UN Security Council meeting. Russia has also called for an international humanitarian mission to be launched.

Fighting between Kiev’s army and self-defense forces intensified on Tuesday, with the Ukrainian military using heavy weaponry around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. According to witnesses, the Ukrainian army resorted to multiple rocket launchers, including Uragan launchers and cruise missiles, RIA Novosti reported citing local militia.

Cruise missiles were spotted flying over the city of Gorlovka on Tuesday, while Uragan launchers were seen near the town of Snezhniy, witnesses told the news agency. Explosions reportedly caused by airstrikes were also heard within the city of Donetsk.

Amid the increased violence, Russia called for an emergency UN Security Council session on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine on Tuesday.

Russia’s UN envoy proposed the deployment of an international humanitarian mission, along with Russian humanitarian aid under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“We propose to send convoys of Russian humanitarian aid under the auspices of the ICRC, to Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as other towns in Ukraine, where internally displaced persons are concentrated in the eastern regions,” Churkin said.

He noted that eastern Ukrainians urgently require food, medicine, medical equipment, water purification systems, and electricity generators.

“By any human standards, the situation in the east, especially in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, is catastrophic,” Churkin said. “Today with certainty we can and should be talking about a real war – the International Committee of the Red Cross officially acknowledged the internal armed conflict in the east of Ukraine.”

“Artillery, tanks, as well as rockets are used. There is continuing information from locals about the use of phosphorus bombs and cluster bombs,” Churkin added. “There is indiscriminate shelling of housing blocks and critical civilian infrastructure. In many small towns about 80 percent of houses have been destroyed, according to most conservative estimates. More than 600 buildings have fallen.”

US restocks Israel with ammunition hours after condemning UN school attack

The United States confirmed it had restocked Israel’s supplies of ammunition, hours after issuing a strong condemnation of an attack on a United Nations school in Gaza, AFP reported.

The Israeli military requested additional ammunition to restock its dwindling supplies on July 20, the Pentagon said. The US Defense Department approved the sale just three days later.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.

“This defense sale is consistent with those objectives.”

Two of the requested munitions came from a little-known stockpile of ammunition stored by the US military on the ground in Israel for emergency use by the Jewish state. The War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel is estimated to be worth $1 billion.

The decision to provide ammunition to Israel could fuel controversy, coming just as Washington expresses growing concern about the deaths of more than 1,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, since the Israeli operation began on July 8.

Security Council calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

The UN Security Council on Monday appealed for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza at a late-night emergency meeting called as fighting between Israel and Hamas entered its third week.

The 15-member Council released a statement calling for the truce to allow aid deliveries during the Muslim Eid festival marking the end of Ramadan, and as the death toll rose to more than 1,030 Palestinians.

The Council expressed “strong support” for an “immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire,” allowing for urgent deliveries of aid, and urged all sides to “accept and fully implement” the truce.

The statement was put forward by Jordan with the backing of Arab countries.

In its statement, the Council voiced “grave concern regarding the deterioration in the situation as a result of the crisis related to Gaza and the loss of civilian lives and casualties.”

The Council said “civilian and humanitarian facilities, including those of the UN, must be respected and protected” following outrage over the Israeli attack on a UN-run school in Gaza this week that left 15 dead.

Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor suggested the stance taken by the Council was biased.

“Miraculously it doesn’t mention Hamas. It doesn’t mention the firing of rockets. Those things are lacking in this statement, he said.

“You don’t have to have the IQ of a rocket scientist to understand that if rockets are falling on you, you are allowed to defend yourself.”

Source: AFP

Ban Ki-Moon condemns Israeli attack on UN school in Gaza

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israeli attack on one of the UN-run schools in Beit Hanoun, serving as a shelter to Palestinian refugees.

“I am appalled by the news of an attack on an UNRWA school in Northern Gaza where hundreds of people had taken refuge,” Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.

Speaking from Erbil, Ban stated that “many have been killed – including women and children, as well as UN staff. Circumstances are still unclear. I strongly condemn this act.”

UN Secretary General noted that “more than 100,000 Gazans – that’s five percent of the total population – have sought refuge in UNRWA facilities. I once again stress to all sides that they must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law to respect the sanctity of civilian life, the inviolability of UN premises and to honor their obligations to humanitarian workers.”

The deaths increased to 788 killed in total in Gaza and more than 5 000 wounded. The numbers do not include more than a dozen Palestins killed in southern Israel since the conflict began on 8 July.

UN urges US to welcome immigrants as refugees

United Nations officials are pushing for many of the Central Americans fleeing to the U.S. to be treated as refugees displaced by armed conflict, a designation meant to increase pressure on the United States to accept tens of thousands of people currently ineligible for asylum.

Officials with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees say they hope to see a regional agreement on that status Thursday when migration and interior department representatives from the U.S., Mexico, and Central America meet in Nicaragua. The group will discuss updating a 30-year-old declaration regarding the obligations nations have to aid refugees.

While such a resolution would lack any legal weight in the United States, the agency said it believes “the U.S. and Mexico should recognize that this is a refugee situation, which implies that they shouldn’t be automatically sent to their home countries but rather receive international protection.”

Central Americans would be among the first modern migrants considered refugees because they are fleeing violence and extortion at the hands of criminal gangs.“Unaccompanied children and families who fear for their lives and freedoms must not be forcibly returned without access to proper asylum procedures,” UNHCR official Leslie Velez said in testimony submitted to the House Judiciary Committee late last month.

Immigration experts in the U.S. and Central America say the flow of migrants from Honduras and El Salvador is likely to rise as the two countries experience gang-related violence. Honduras, a primary transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine, has the world’s highest homicide rate for a nation that is not at war.

Salvadorans heading north through Mexico who were interviewed by The Associated Press last month said there also was fear of the “Sombra Negra,” or “Black Shadow” – groups of masked men in civilian clothes who are believed responsible for extrajudicial killings of teens in gang-controlled neighborhoods. The Salvadoran government denies any involvement in death squads, but says it is investigating the reports.

Source: CBS